


we've become echoes (don't fade away)

by buckyjerkbarnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (to an extent), (you've got to endure the hard to get to the easy), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Atonement - Freeform, Character Study, Gen, Guilt, Healing, Hydra hunting roadtrip 2k18, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve has a lot to work through, and it's not gonna be all rainbows and butterflies, brief panic attack, characters and tags to be added, these boys love each other so damn much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-03 21:36:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14005308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: Steve once uttered a promise in a shared tent on the Italian front, swore to Bucky that Hydra would never lay a hand on him so long as Steve could swing his fists. And Bucky had smiled a hollow smile, like he wanted to believe what Steve was selling, but all evidence suggested otherwise. Like their time was bought, like it was inevitable he end up in Hydra’s grasp again. That had left a bruise on Steve’s breastbone, that lack of light in Bucky’s eyes, as though it were a physical wound.That bruise panged now, demanding attention.Steve stood, knees wobbling less than he believed they would. He let his hand flatten out on the glass, over the place where Bucky's heart beat quiet and steady. More than often than not during the war, it was that precious sound that kept Steve's head above the water. It was buoying him now.“I’ll be seeing you soon, Buck. Real soon.”Steve wouldn’t fail him.Not again.[Or: The one where Steve believes Bucky doesn’t remember they were together, goes on a global spree of targeting stray Hydra members, and finally gets to grieve in a way he didn’t during Civil War.]





	we've become echoes (don't fade away)

**Author's Note:**

> This... is probably the saddest thing I've ever written. Named for "Silhouettes" by Aquilo. Enjoy!

When Bucky had approached him in the deafening quiet of their wing in Wakanda, falling in at Steve's right and making sure almost a foot of space remained between their shoulders, Steve knew that whatever was going to happen in the next few minutes was going to keep him awake that night. Bucky always did have a habit of trying to distance himself, especially when whatever he had to say had the slightest chance of hurting Steve. 

(They tried to protect the other before themselves. That's how they operated. Always has been. Steve could stomach every fight, could slam his shield down on Tony's arch reactor until the world began to disintegrate around the edges and the sun burnt out, but he wasn't sure he could ever shake Bucky's face from his head, his arm a mess of wire and sparking circuitry, eyes glassy and unfocused and red around the edges. Another nightmare to put up alongside sharp wind and white skies and trains snaking through snow slashed mountains.)

He remained still, watching the world around them keep turning, instead. 

"I think," Bucky said, deliberately slow so he would not be mistaken, "that it would be for the best if I went back into cyro-freeze." 

Steve played like a statue and didn't let any inward emotion flow to the surface, didn't so much as allow his jaw to twitch or his teeth to grind or his hands to move from where they hung limply at his sides. He let his eyes flicker to Bucky's reflection in the glass, found Bucky already looking back at him. 

He wanted to say  _I just got you back_ and  _please don't leave me alone again_ because when it came to Bucky, he'd always be selfish. He wanted to close the distance— the chasm, the rift, whatever the fuck was keeping Bucky from just invading Steve's space— and take Bucky in his arms. Steve wanted to wrap him up on a blanket and plant them both on the couch to watch a couple of movies from their day, warm and safe and together. The fact of the matter is that they are far older than the stupid set of boys who ran off waving the American flag hoping to do a bit of good in the world. Steve would be alright if their little microcosm settled right on its feet once more, for there to be at least a  _semblance_ of steadiness over these goddamn eggshells they've both been tip-toeing on for weeks. 

Steve had no right to ask Bucky to stay, not when Buck's autonomy has only just been placed back in his hands. So when he actually mustered up the courage to turn his head, to actually set his eyes on Bucky, not the faint image of him in the glass, Steve said: "Whatever you have to do, Buck," so soft he may as well have not even said it at all. 

Bucky heard him anyway.

 

* * *

 

They had a quiet dinner, just the two of them, the night before Bucky was to execute his plan. Hours before, Sam had given Bucky’s hand a firm shake, telling him, “I won’t miss your dumbass comments around here while you’re out,” in a tone that, despite the words, suggested he would.

To which Bucky retorted with: “This is going to be the best vacation of my life—getting away from your bird brain while still living it up in the lap of luxury.”

“More like  _lab_ of luxury, amirite?” Clint had chimed from the doorway, Scott at his right, Wanda slipping past him to fall in at Bucky’s side. Steve knew he’d become fond of her, had caught Bucky talking with her quietly one night after Steve had broken them out of the Raft. Bucky had confessed to him later that he felt guilty Steve’s friends had gone to such lengths to protect him, that it was Wanda who affected him the most because—

“She’s just a  _kid_ ,” he’d said, like he was trying to wrap his mind around that. “Tiny as hell, too. I mean, she’s stronger than both of us combined, but god _damn_ , Steve,” Bucky shook his head, dragging his shaking hand over his face before rounding back to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “She didn’t deserve to have a shock collar put on her like some sort of rabid dog, to be restrained like… like…”

And though he couldn’t bring himself to say it, Steve knew he would have concluded the sentence with the words  _to be restrained like I was_.

Wanda had curled a hand to his cheek, her eyes flaring red for just a moment as something seemed to pass between her and Bucky and he dipped in to plant a kiss on her brow. She nodded twice at whatever it was he said in return, through the link she’d fastened for them to speak silently. A small smile broke out on his lips.

They puttered out, then, leaving Steve and Bucky standing parallel to one another, suddenly small in their massive suite. “Do you think His Majesty would object if we fixed our own meal tonight?” Bucky asked him quietly.

Steve shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think he would.” If he was honest, Steve didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone, even if the chefs who orchestrated each fine dining course and those in charge of delivering said courses were some of the most polite people he’d met. Out of the two of them, Bucky was the better cook, but Steve shooed him away, narrowing his eyes until Bucky raised his hand in surrender and boosted himself on the counter to be a general menace while Steve set about throwing together meatloaf using his Ma’s recipe. They’d made it so much back then he could probably whip it up in his sleep. 

He swatted at Bucky with a wooden spoon when a quick digit shot into the pot of mashed potatoes for a quick taste, his ribs going tight around his lungs when Bucky barked out a laugh and smeared the remaining white mush on his finger across the bridge of Steve’s nose.

If he could have preserved the moment in amber, tucking it tenderly into his pocket to carry around like a photograph, he would’ve.

And if he’d had the courage, Steve might have let the spoon fall back into the pot, turning away from the stovetop without a care in the world whether or not the food would burn—in a century of excessive waste, it would only be natural— and he’d hold Bucky’s face between his hands. He’d lean close until their noses bumped together. He’d cover Bucky’s mouth with his own, pulling away just to say  _I still love you and I’m so sorry and I always will be for all I allowed you to endure and if I could take away your pain, pulling it into myself, I’d not hesitate._

Hesitation—that was the beast that took Bucky from him before; he should have lunged forward on that train, he should have leaned out further. Who would have given a damn if Steve fell, too? All the pieces of himself that mattered had been lost to snow and ice, anyway.

But he did none of that.

Their meal was quiet and their feet bumped under the table and they watched a sitcom from the nineties on a television with a price tag that could have paid the rent of their entire block back in the forties. Steve watched Bucky out the corner of his eye, observing the micro-expressions that crossed those beloved features when various happenings occurred throughout the half an hour program; a witty punch-line got light crow’s feet around the eyes, a shitty pun got the left corner of his mouth slanting up a few degrees, a bit of drama gained a trio of lines across his forehead.

He was the best thing that had ever happened to Steve.

Bucky shifted so their sides were pressed flush together, stretching out languidly to put up his feet on the coffee table, crossed at the ankle. He settled his head on Steve’s shoulder, lightly, like he was waiting for Steve to shrug him away.

Steve put his arm around Bucky’s shoulders, because if this was the last night they were going to have together for an indiscernible amount of time, he was going to spend it with Bucky pulled close as he dared. They dosed off like that, tipping into one another; a grand, stubborn arch in a bombed out cathedral that refused to crumble down the middle.

 

* * *

 

They parted ways just after three in the morning, untangling themselves, and Steve wasn’t sure whether or not he imagined Bucky’s hesitance or if he was just projecting his own. He didn’t want Bucky to leave his sight because the next time they saw each other, the lab and the cyro-tank would come almost directly after. Steve nearly tripped when he stood, the blood in his body having settled, slowly moving into his lower limbs.

But Bucky was there, catching him by the arm with a soft, sleepy laugh that settled in Steve’s aching chest cavity, warming him, soothing, too, but breaking him apart all the same.

(After he was released, Steve could still feel the hot points of contact of Bucky’s fingertips at his bicep, like the lingering electricity in the air before a summer storm.)

They went for their separate quarters, Steve leaving his door open, Bucky pulling his nearly closed: he tugged on a pair of sleep pants and a plain undershirt, slipping into bed and laying on his back. Steve folded his hands over his stomach, suddenly so much colder without Bucky and he felt hyperaware of his surroundings— everything from the softness of his sheets to the near-silent hum of the ventilation system to the ever-so faint roar of the waterfall punctuating the landscape just outside the windows. It was like his body was trying to pitch him into the deep end of a mission, one where he’d need to be focused and awake for a long period without rest.

He’d slept so well less than half an hour previous.

Steve doesn’t need some sort of fancy science degree to know why that was.

He tilted his head so he stared out into the hallway, at the entrance to Bucky’s room right down the hall from his. If he really strained his hearing, Steve could only just catch the faint sound of breathing. It wasn’t the slow in-out of sleep nor the anxious, rapid panting of a nightmare, either. There was near silence, as though Bucky was holding his breath, as though he was dreading the break of dawn just as much as Steve.

As much as he wanted to, Steve did not leave his bed until pink light began to bleed under the lip of the curtains drawn over his windows.

Neither did Bucky.

 

* * *

 

The clinical white and chrome of the lab made Steve’s eyes hurt like hell first thing in the morning, even though he’d been awake for hours and was more than lucid. He tried to keep space between himself and Bucky, knowing if he just loitered mere inches away the entirety of the preparation procedure, practically becoming Bucky’s second shadow, it would be all the more painful when he would have to watch Bucky go.

Still, even in his little act of self-preservation, all sorts of bells and whistles began to howl in warning when Bucky slipped off the metal table, rolled his right shoulder then, more carefully, his left.  _Too far, too far, too far_ , became the frantic mantra that struck up, sending out a sharp pulse right to Steve’s temple. He couldn’t help the flinch that went through him.

And, worse still, as Bucky made the step up into the cyro-tube, Steve couldn’t repress a soft noise of hurt. Bucky’s head snapped up and around, eyes far too big and blue-gray in his face. Immediately, Steve felt the skin of his cheeks flush for having allowed the role he’d been playing to be foiled by such a small act of weakness.

Bucky stepped back, murmuring a quick word to one of the many technicians that had been so, so helpful in trying to develop treatments that might allow Bucky to officially reclaim himself as his own person, inside and out. The woman flicked her dark eyes to Steve, then back to Bucky, nodded and moved to the opposite side of the lab.

“I know you hate this,” Bucky said without preamble, moving so he and Steve were nearly bumping toes—Bucky’s feet were bare, Steve had been wearing the same pair of boots since they’d arrived in T’Challa’s country. “Your face does this thing. Could see it from Brooklyn, if I tried. It’s for the best, though—,” and he nodded once, twice like he was convincing himself more than he was Steve. Bucky placed his hand on the left side of Steve’s neck, thumb on the hinge of Steve’s jaw. “—and it’s not forever,” he said, giving Steve a little shake. “You hear me? It’ll be a few months, maybe a year and then I’ll never have to go on ice again. Just a year.”

“I hear you. Just a year,” Steve echoed softly, merely reflecting the emotion in Bucky’s face rather than putting forth any of his own. It took a great deal of strength to smile, to keep from looking away from Bucky; while every piece of Steve wanted to never stop taking in his features, Bucky was the brightest thing in the room, blinding, all the warmth of the world wrapped up in one treasured person. “S’not so bad.”

_Yes it is. I’ve spent so long without you. Don’t make me spend more. Please._

And Bucky smiled, a hint of even, white teeth serving only to make Steve’s heart race faster. The finest art pieces paled in comparison, all the sunsets and instances of laughter failed to have the same sort of rich light. That disarming smile would be Steve’s downfall, but he’d accepted that long before he’d even become Captain America.

“I’ll see you on the other side?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, bopping his head in a near-unconscious nod. He really couldn’t feel much below the neck. “Course you will, Buck. I’ll be here.”

A wider, realer and sadder smile from Bucky, made bittersweet from the swirl of emotion that sent those eyes of his going a bit glassy. “I know that, too, punk.” The smile faded, making the lab dim a bit. “I don’t want you to just sit in our suite and wait, Steve.”

He didn’t say that there wasn’t honestly much he could do, not when nearly every country who signed the Accords had him, Sam, Wanda, Clint, Scott and Bucky at the top of their most wanted lists. “No, I know,” Steve said, in pure auto-pilot mode. “I know that. I won’t.”

Bucky, to one’s surprise, especially not Steve’s, didn’t think that was good enough. “Don’t you do that,” he said softly, still managing the pack every bit of desperation as a man on his death bed, still managing to punch right through Steve’s ribs and twist at his heart with those imploring eyes alone. “You’re fronting and I can see you going further and further into yourself. You’ve got so many people who love you. Who care about you and your well-being and I’ll be damned if you just… if you just shut down. I want you to live— go explore this place, start painting again, hell, read a book. Just  _live._ For me, if not for yourself.”

He wasn’t sure how exactly Bucky could ask him such a thing, not when Bucky’s been Steve’s reason for existing since they were six years old— don’t let your body give out for him, fight for him, grieve for him, tear apart the world searching for him, wage a global-scale political war for him. Anyone, especially if that person was Sam, would argue that Steve hadn’t really been living, but now it was Bucky who was doing the asking and he never could resist those pleading eyes. Never wanted to.

“Jerk,” he whispered, bringing his own hand up to cover Bucky’s, holding his fingers in place as he tipped his face enough to press a hard kiss to the center of Bucky’s palm. Something fractured in Bucky’s demeanor, a tiny, hair fracture of a shift that Steve never would have seen if he hadn’t spent so much of his life observing Bucky Barnes. It was gone as soon as it came, a firework blooming and fading on the horizon.

Steve forced his voice to form the sentence: “You think you got enough room in that tank to take all the stupid with you?”

Bucky let his hand fall away from Steve’s face, leaving Steve to clutch at empty air, and he swallowed hard then told Steve: “I don’t think all the space in the world could contain our collective stupidity, pal.”

And just like that, Bucky was gone again.

 

* * *

 

Sam found him sitting against the wall down the hall from the medical wing— that was where his knees had given out once he managed to tear himself away. Looking at Bucky in the tank had been far too close to looking at a corpse, as someone who had resigned themselves to death, who welcomed it, even. He carefully lowered himself down at Steve's right, leaving a few inches of space between their shoulders. He mirrored Steve's stance of knees bent and hands draped loosely over his thighs, watching corner of his eye as though he thought Steve couldn't feel him looking. 

"I spoke with T'Challa," Sam said lightly. "As of three minutes ago, he believes they can have a solution ready within the next six months. And that's a broad window.” 

“Good,” Steve said, hollow as an empty grave. Bucky had estimated a year and now that time was being sliced in half. In a few days, this chunk of news would probably make Steve smile, but not now. The glow of the lab was still in clear view. Bucky and his tank of ice weren’t. He could only just make out the faint shadows of technicians moving around, the lines of their bodies falling across the floor then shifting out of the glare of the afternoon sun.

Steve tipped his head to the side to throw a look at Sam. Sam, with those dark eyes that were wise beyond his years; Sam, who had dropped everything after knowing Steve for all of a week to chase a ghost around the world; Sam, who hadn’t seen his mother in almost two months and his sister’s kids in four. Steve owed him so much. It was a debt he didn’t think he’d ever be able to pay.

“You’re gonna hate hearing this, but this level of healing is going to take time,” Sam told him. There was nothing patronizing in his voice and Steve loved him a little more for it.

Steve bumped their shoulders together, huffing out a breath when Sam swayed in to bump him back. “I know. And I’ve hated hearing the other thousand times you’ve said the same thing.”

That got Sam to smile, a small, muted thing. “So,” he murmured, nudging the toe of Steve’s boot with his own. “Any idea what you’re gonna do now?”

He had, before Bucky decided to return to cyro, planned on them getting to know each other again. There had been an extensive plan accumulating at the back of his mind, where he’d sit Bucky down with his backpack of memories and help Buck wade through the notebooks— he’d answer anything Bucky might have only gotten half a glimpse at, be the brick and mortar to Bucky’s collapsed walls and help him put his defenses back up again where Hydra and time itself had knocked them down. Steve made his own character profiles, of sorts, scratching down entire tombs of people, everyone from Bucky’s sisters to the Howlies to people who lived in their childhood neighborhood to distant cousins of Bucky who lived in Indiana.

(He hadn’t let himself think about whether or not they might be able to fall back together again, if they’d be able to utilize a new found freedom in other areas. One of the greatest things about the future had been its acceptance of so many things that had once been taboo in Steve’s time and he’d been incapable of shaking the pain that  _Bucky isn’t here to see all this, too._ )

“I think I wanna head back to the suite,” Steve said eventually. “I think I might try to get some rest.”

Sam hid his skepticism very well in the minuscule lift of his brow. “I was thinking more long term, but it’s good you’ve got that far in your plan, I guess.”

“There’s not much I can do, honestly,” he said. “Not with my face being plastered on news outlets around the world.” Steve paused, curled his right hand into a fist, squeezed, let his fingers fall flat on his lap. He already had crescent shaped indentions from where he’d pressed too hard and drawn blood before Sam arrived. He could dimly detect lines of rust drying beneath his nails. “I think when the smoke’s a little heavier, I’ll try and start picking off remaining Hydra cells. Maybe find any of the stragglers listed in Bucky’s file that didn’t pop a cyanide tablet or haven’t eaten their own gun.”

“A Hydra hunting world tour, huh,” Sam mused, giving a considering nod of his head. “I think His Majesty would be more than willing to offer us the needed resources. And I’m sure Nat’s ready to work off some steam, too.” He flicked his eyes to Steve, let them linger. “But do you think  _you_ are in a good state of mind to throw yourself back into the fight like that?”

Steve didn’t dignify that with a response.

He shoved to his feet, Sam following him up a few seconds later, said again: “I think I’m going to get lay down. I didn’t really sleep last night, so.”

Sam had never stopped watching him with those careful, considering eyes. He folded his arms over his chest, gave Steve a little nod. “Yeah,” Sam said quietly. “But you ought to know Wanda said she was gonna stop by later, if you were up for it. And I was hoping you might pencil me in for tomorrow?”

Steve clapped Sam on the shoulder, mouth ticking up at the corner. “I’ll try.”

“I know you will, man. That’s all we can ask of you.” Sam shoved him, not had enough to hurt, but with enough strength to make a point. “Go on. You don’t gotta humor me anymore. Catch some Z’s. I’ll tell Wanda to text you before she drops in, yeah?”

With a nod that that was alright, Steve turned, leaving Sam, leaving the white light of the lab, behind him.

The suite was deathly quiet compared to how it had been the morning before, with Bucky puttering at the coffee maker, his feet scuff-scuffing on the tile floor. He’d hummed softly below his breath, something Steve hadn’t heard him do since nineteen forty-one, frying up eggs and bacon and popping down toast for the both of them. There was none of that now, but Bucky’s things were strewn all around the living space. A dog-eared copy of  _Slaughterhouse-Five_ on the coffee table, a mug with a chip on the rim in the sink, the backpack stashed near the front door in case they needed to make a quick getaway. The faint smell of Buck’s citrus soap somehow traveled from the bathroom to where Steve had frozen in the foyer. He didn’t turn on the television because it would be Bucky’s movie queue that popped up. Bucky’s records on the player across the room. They’d listened to Benny Goodman the other night and Steve, for a shining instant, had deluded himself into thinking nearly eighty years hadn’t passed them by, hadn’t been torn from them. He’d even worked up the courage to ask Bucky to dance and then he saw the cap covering the mangled mass of wires that was Bucky’s left arm and suddenly all he could taste was the copper of blood and all he could smell was the burning of circuitry and—

The thing trying to work its way up his esophagus broke out in the form of a thick sob, something that felt as though it was trying to strangle him from the inside. He couldn’t breathe.  _He couldn’t fucking breathe._ Steve staggered to the double doors that led out to a balcony saturated with sunlight. His lungs were working double time to get air in and out of his lungs, but it burned so bad on the way down, somehow stinging worse on its way out. His ears rang, like there was some high-pitched frequency only he could detect being played right beside him.

He couldn’t get control of his heart, but this was worse than any asthma attack he’d ever had. Even then, whenever one of those wheezing, throat-constricting episodes had come on, Bucky had been with him. Bucky or his Ma, without fail. Bucky would pull Steve to him, Bucky’s chest pressed to Steve’s back and he’d talk him through it, get Steve to hold his wrist, to feel the steady pulse just beneath the surface and try to slow his erratic heartbeat to something calmer. But Bucky wasn’t fucking  _here_  and his Ma, oh god his  _Ma—_

Steve ripped a breath in through his teeth, hands quaking as they rose and dug his palms into his stinging eyes. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t make any noise rise in him. No matter how hard he tried. Nothing. Nothing,  _nothing_ —

There was suddenly a small pair of hands urging him to lower himself to the ground, wisps of red helping in the task. The same wisps carefully arranged his limbs so he sat on his backside, knees bent and almost level with his nose. Those hands curled to either side of his head, gently guided him so his forehead pressed to his kneecaps.

Wanda’s mouth was moving, her face pale and the talc around her eyes smeared at the corners. He could hear her from what sounded like the end of a tunnel, her voice steady. One of her hands fell away, the other brushing at his nape in short, continuous strokes.

“…just breathe, Steve. It’s okay. We’ll be okay, yeah? Shh, I know. I know.”

He had no right to accept her comfort, not when she’d lost her brother. Not when she’d felt him get torn apart by a barrage of bullets, felt the very moment Pietro’s heart stopped beating because hers momentarily faltered, too. Steve’s mouth didn’t move to assure her he was alright, that she didn’t have to stay with him. Even if he could, if he did, he highly doubted she’d go.

She ended up arranging him so his head rested on her shoulder, her thin arms wrapped around him, holding him together even as he trembled apart. Steve lost track time, didn’t notice the different angles of the light, only noted them when they were absent.

Steve only realized he must have passed out when he blinked his half-swollen eyes open and found himself in bed, the blankets tugged up to his chin, his boots off and settled neatly at the foot of the mattress. He didn’t get up. There was movement in the kitchen area, two, no, three separate entities.

He laid there until they went away. Didn’t move even when they did.

 

* * *

 

The thing is Steve had always known if something happened to Bucky in the war, if he died, he would feel the moment it happened. He’d drop whatever was in his hands or if he was standing, he’d collapse, as though shot in the head. There would be a void that could not be filled. Something similar to a black hole that just settled and radiated with cold and pulled everything into it without any sort of consideration. It would be a wound that was so gnarled and sensitive, no matter how Steve nursed it or tried to bury it with time, it could not be ignored. It could not be healed.

When Bucky fell, Steve still felt him. He felt him when he crashed the  _Valkyrie_.  He couldn’t shake him when he woke in this new, strange age. He still carried him, muscles aching and body sore, that day on the motorway when the mask covering the lower-half of his face came away.

The void had the potential to crack open, but it never did.

It never did.

He’d only thought it had.

Everything after was somehow worse than he’d expected.

 

* * *

 

After a week of self-imposed solitary confinement, Steve padded towards the kitchen fully expecting to just get a glass of water and go back to bed when he found the entirety of the Secret Avengers gathered around the kitchen island. Sam was frying up bacon, a dishtowel tossed over his shoulder looking every bit the mother hen that he was. Wanda and Scott sliced a sort of bulbous fruit that he’d never seen before, likely due to it being indigenous only to Wakanda. Clint was arranging chairs around the little four-person table and even T’Challa was helping out by taking the fresh bread out of the oven.

Steve blinked and damn near made an about face into his room.

Scott, however, spied him, beaming. “Hey, guys! He’s up!”

Another four sets of eyes turned his way. He wished they wouldn’t look at him, ducking his head as he bit back a sigh of resignation. He knew how bad his appearance was. He’d not showered since the night before Bucky went into cryo, nor had he shaved or even changed his clothes. He had to stink with stale sweat, his hair limp and oily on his forehead and stubble itched at his cheeks, under his nose, along his jaw, something fierce.

“Good to see you’re up, Sleeping Beauty,” Sam called lightly, waving the spatula at him. “Go on and grab a chair. Food’ll be done in a few.”

There was no getting around this. Any other day, Steve would go as far as to admit this was a good tactic—assemble their forces on his domain, wait like hunters for him to emerge from his cave, only to strike when he least expected it. That last bit was a lie. Steve knew he’d not be able to avoid them forever. Had he hoped he could push back their advances a little longer? Yes. Did he expect to win on that front? No way in hell.

So he did as Sam said. He nabbed a chair that had been hauled in, leaving the sturdier wooden seats for their filling. Steve still didn’t look at any of them, didn’t scoot his chair all the way up so he could hang his hands between his knees, fiddle with his fingers while the rest of the room moved around him.

Without his notice, Wanda deposited the huge tray of fruit on his side of the table and sank into the seat at his right. Not half a minute later, Sam fell in at his left with Clint on Wanda’s other side. He, in turn, was left bumping elbows with Scott while T’Challa tipped close to Sam, Scott chatting animatedly around a mouthful of eggs. A hot feast had been laid out, sending the greasy smells of breakfast worming up his nose and landing hard in his empty pit of a stomach. Steve hadn’t eaten anything heavier than crackers in four days for fear he’d just vomit and cause a greater mess.

He appreciated their effort, even if he wanted nothing more than to be left alone again.

They all chitchatted amongst one another, Steve throwing out a word or two, a smile if he felt up to giving one. This was accepted, though Sam, more than any of them, tried to keep Steve engaged, to draw him out of the shell he’d much rather be tucked away in. He felt rather than saw T’Challa keeping track of how much food was ushered into Steve’s mouth versus how much was carefully arranged on his plate. Wanda tipped into Steve’s side, a comforting heat. Her feet were tucked under her and she amused herself by challenging Scott to a berry throwing contest, pointedly bouncing the small red and blue projectiles off Scott’s forehead, his cheeks, his nose, just to get Steve’s mouth twitching.  

Steve pretended not to see Clint slip three more pieces of bacon onto his plate, the move fluidly turning into him dishing out another serving for himself. He caught Steve’s eye, winked, and asked T’Challa how a situation concerning infighting amongst his people was going. Steve didn’t process much of it, half out of the loop given he knew very little of the context, but T’Challa responded with the same dignity and grace he utilized in everything he did.

Scott’s phone pinged with a notification, a photo message. He turned the device to them all after he cradled it to him for a long moment, absolutely beaming: it was of his daughter, Cassie, decked out in a poufy dress and a toothy smile.

“She’s a cute kid, Scott,” Steve said quietly. “You must be very proud of her.” The beginnings of the happy bubble that was forming just behind Steve’s diaphragm burst, leaving him deflated and cold, despite the heat of the coffee he’d downed in three hard gulps. He’d led them all down a path that took them away from their families, from their friends. If he’d not been so selfish, if he’d not dragged them into his… his fucking quest for penance.

Sam bumped him with his elbow right in the ribs. Not hard enough to hurt, but the move was pointed, calculated.

He’d seen through Steve with a swiftness that would have made Bucky proud. “Don’t do that, man,” Sam said quietly, barely shaping the words with his lips and knowing full well that Steve would hear him anyway.

Steve’s stomach was starting to protest, having not been properly fed and suddenly not having the slightest idea of how to handle itself when it was. He put down his fork, plucked the cloth napkin off the table and fiddled with it, rolling and straightening it as a futile attempt to channel his nervous energy.

“Hey, Kit-Kat?” Sam prompted suddenly. T’Challa tipped his face Sam’s way and Steve almost laughed. He must have missed when this nickname became so commonly used that T’Challa didn’t have to hear it twice for his attention to be wholly snagged. “Any word on when our special package is going to be delivered?”

T’Challa’s warm brown eyes flicked to Steve then back to Sam. “Last update said it would be three days maximum.”

“Good,” Sam nodded, flashing a hint of teeth, that endearing gap, in his smile. “That’s good.”

Steve didn’t know what any of that was supposed to mean. He didn’t bother searching the other’s faces for any sign, any hint of a direction this clearly coded speak was going.

He pushed his chair back, took his plate, stood. “Thank you,” Steve murmured, speaking to the room and looking at the unblinking tabletop. He’d not sounded so mechanical since he was still doing his run for the SSR dancing monkey gig. “For the food and for the company. It… it means a lot to me.”

His plate went in the sink, was washed along with his mug and his knife and his fork. Quiet had fallen over those behind him, remained until he’d toweled off his hands and retreated to his room.

Sam’s deep sigh could be heard through the door.

 

* * *

 

Some seventy hours passed before there was another disturbance.

The door to his room nudged open. There was no knock and the footfalls that crossed the floor were light, carefully poised. Someone settled on the edge of his mattress. 

“Delivery for Steve Rogers,” a dry, quiet voice said, no more than an arm’s length away.

He had been curled on his side facing the wide windows, curtains pulled aside. Steve killed hours at a time just watching colorful birds rise above the trees, counted how many deep violets and heated pinks were in the sunset versus the sunrise. But that voice—he twisted around, propped up on one elbow and he stared.

Steve had not seen Natasha in almost two and a half months: her hair was pale blonde, almost as light as his had been when he was a kid, ever-exposed to the bleaching touch of the sun, and her eyes were the same blue-green that he’d come to find great comfort in. She didn’t even say anything, but her mouth  _twisted_ and he sat up in one fluid movement to wrap her in his arms. Her hands flattened on his shoulder blades, her face pressed against his chest.

He pretended not to hear her soft, soft sniffle. “You look like hell,” she said.

“Feel like it, too,” Steve murmured. Once, he might have lied through his teeth, said he was fine when it was glaringly obvious he was nothing of the sort. Natasha had dropped her barriers with him long ago and he had done the same— he didn’t think it would be fair if he took back something she so clearly saw as a gift.

Despite him being so much larger than her, he felt like he’d had the serum sapped from him, leaving him small and frail in her embrace. 

“I’ve missed you.”

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head, gripped him tighter. “I missed you, too, Steve.”

For the first time since he’d watched the ice condense and still over Bucky’s features, Steve was able to breathe, to taking air into his lungs without the oxygen passing through his lips with the strength of acid on terrycloth. Natasha’s fingers brushed through his hair, spiked it up, smoothed it down.

“When’s the last time you’ve slept?”

He didn’t look at her. “I don’t know.”

Steve felt rather than saw her shoulders tighten with worry. He never meant to worry her, never meant to worry Sam, either, or the rest of his team who just wanted to see him get back on his feet again. Steve had no reservations to the fact that, if he sat down and explained why he needed his space, why it was so imperative that he recede and not be pulled back in before he was ready, he knew they’d understand.

He didn’t have time to grieve right out the ice, not with SHIELD throwing him dossier after dossier containing detailed information on friends who had long-since died of old age. Not when he was being made to wade through a multitude of binders meant to bring him up to date on the future. Then there were the Chitauri, swarming Manhattan through an ugly gash in the sky and an unruly god pulling the strings.

He didn’t even have time to grieve in the two years before Fury was shot in his DC living room, before that muzzling mask fell off on the motorway and the world Steve thought he’d had a relatively stable footing in threw him a hardball from left field. It had been so important to stamp it all down, to never look at any of what he’d lost directly, but it always remained in its totality in his peripheral, just out of focus, ever-present.

He’d been out of the ice for almost seven years and everything he’d pushed deep, deep down beneath the surface was starting to rise. He couldn’t hold it back any longer. One day, some time soon, he’d be pulled beneath the surface of a flood of his own making.

Natasha was staring, a pair of lines drawn between her eyebrows. “Steve,” she said, with the air of having had to say it several times before it registered with him.

Steve gave his head a hard shake, mumbled: “Sorry.”

She gave his scalp a light scritch, a silent acceptance of his monosyllabic apology. “I said at least you’re honest.” The fingertips of her free hand touched lightly at the skin beneath his right eye, at the violent purple rings that appeared to be permanent features of his face by then. “How are you holding up?”

He snorted. “I’m not, Nat.”

Her fingers curled into a fist, settled lightly on his cheek. Not only were her eyebrows pinched together, but her forehead had puckered, too, and Steve realized he’d never seen her look so concerned. “It’s because of Barnes, isn’t it?”

 _Of course it’s because of Bucky. Of course._ His behavior was predictable at this point. It was surprising that there wasn’t some sort of chart in existence that pin-pointed Steve’s actions where Bucky was concerned versus where he wasn’t. He didn’t think he’d want to see that data, not up close.

“You’ve been talking to Sam,” Steve surmised. His weight tipping into hers must be edging on too much, even for all of Nat’s strength. He made to move, but she applied pressure just so to the middle of his back and he went limp once more.

“Course I have,” she murmured. “And Clint. I’ve tried to call you, too, but  _someone_ let his phone die.”

He didn’t even know where said device  _was_ , much less had any idea the battery drained. Steve opted to ignore that for the moment, plucked up her original line of conversation. “Sorry,” Steve said again.

Natasha rolled her eyes, though there was no heat behind the motion. “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

“Kind of feels like I do.”

“Well,” she tipped up the right side of her mouth, flashed him a hint of teeth. “Do you know what you could do instead?”

He shook his head against her stomach.

Her green eyes softened. Steve was suddenly reminded of the first time she’d let her guard down with him, her hair damp and frizzy at the temples, a towel limp across her lap as they spoke quietly in Sam’s guest room two and a half and a million years ago. “Get up and shower. I could smell you when I walked in.”

“You just got here, though.” He didn’t want to leave the room, didn’t think it appropriate to ask her to… to what? Sit on the toilet while he showered? Keep him company? Steve pressed his forehead against her thigh, nose squished an odd angle that made Nat huff softly.

“I’m here indefinitely,” she assured him. Then, a touch more brightly: “So, get up. You’re making a New York dumpster seem like high class perfume.”

Steve forced himself to sit up. His body immediately protested, tried to get him to curl back into the indention he’d made in the mattress. He owed her this much, he owed Sam and Wanda and the rest as much. “How I ever survived without your snark, Nat, I have no idea.”

“It’s not snark,” she countered, the smile in her voice tangible and warm. “It’s the truth. I thought Sam was exaggerating when he said he’d need a hazmat suit to come in and hose you down if you kept this up, but he wasn’t.  Leave the beard, though.”

He glanced at her, arching an eyebrow.

“What? If we’re going HYDRA hunting, you’ll need to hide the national treasure that is your jaw.”

“National treasure, huh?”

She hummed by means of a response. “Seriously, Rogers—you shower, I’ll throw something together to eat. Get to it. Come on—,” Nat nudged him, poked at his shoulders until he rolled further and planted his feet on the floor. Now that the idea of a shower was in his head, he realized he  _did_ smell, that his scalp itched and his skin felt oily, like he’d just rubbed himself down with grease and had let the substance sink into his every pore. It took a few more seconds for him to talk himself into standing, pushing off the bed with both hands before crossing to his dresser and gathering a fresh pair of pants, boxers, and an undershirt. The sun would be shining at an angle that warmed the floor of the kitchen so he opted to forgo wearing socks.

“And when you’re done, we can go over some files I think you’ll find interesting,” she said over her shoulder as she headed to the kitchen, leaving him to pad across the hall to the bathroom. He let the door snick shut in his wake, laying his fresh clothing in the sink and stripping methodically out of his sweats, his underwear, and his t-shirt, one he’d pilfered from Bucky’s room. Natasha would probably insist they burn the whole pile rather than try to wash any of it.

He didn’t look at himself in the mirror.

Steve fiddled with the dials of the shower, all of which were digital and controlled by a touchpad. He raising the temperature of the water as high as it would go, put the pressure at a moderate rate, stepped under the full-ceilinged shower head. If he was too quick, Nat would probably give him a look, so he allowed himself to play sloth, indulging in the feeling of days and days worth of grit and grime washing away from his skin. He had a staring contest with Bucky’s bodywash, something that smelled like vanilla, for well over two minutes, before snatching up the bottle and squirting out a liberal amount into a washcloth.

He lathered up, washing himself once, then twice with the first time didn’t seem to do the job. Steve didn’t bother trying to talk himself out of using Bucky’s shampoo, either, rubbed at his scalp, rubbing the oil and the grease and what even felt like congealed salt until he winced. He examined his fingernails and found blood beneath them, distantly feeling his crown sting as the shampoo found his fresh wounds.

Steve’s sigh was lost to the rumble of the shower spay.

 

* * *

 

“Well,” Nat said once he emerged from the damp heat of the bathroom, fresh clothes in place, his hair still wet but combed and parted to the best of his ability. “I’ve seen you looking far worse.”

Steve chuffed out a laugh, didn’t really feel it, though. “I’m taking that as a compliment.”

She gave one of her thin-lipped smiles where the right side of her mouth quirked higher than the left and he knew her to be holding back a laugh of her own. There was still an air of blatant concern in her eyes, though she was doing a damn good job at hiding it. Of course, it was Natasha, after all, and he expected nothing less.

“Where are the files you had to show me?”

The look she gave him was nothing short of unimpressed. "You're not seeing a thing until you eat," she nodded over at the counter where a silver lid covered, presumably, whatever she'd whipped up for him. He'd never known Nat to cook, had always seen her nab off other people's plates or eat what others had ordered or just sip the instant smoothies that Tony liked so much. Steve crossed the kitchen, lifted the lid, and found himself with a stack of toast, coated with a thin layer of butter the way he preferred it, three eggs fried and his bacon arranged in a smiling face. He quirked an eyebrow at her and she just shrugged. 

"Somebody needed to be smiling in this place," Natasha reasoned. "Why not the food?" 

Steve plucked up the right side of the bacon's makeshift mouth and made a  _cheers_ motion with it. 

He ate mechanically, efficient enough that he tasted everything faintly and still chewed thoroughly. She never stopped watching him even as she filled him in on the going-ons outside of their country of asylum. Rhodes was walking again, thanks to technology that Tony had quickly crafted, though it was highly unlikely he'd be in the War Machine suit any time soon. Tony had also taken the spider kid under his wing, putting him beneath closer surveillance given that he'd taken down some guy called the Vulture who had stolen Chitauri tech from the Battle of New York to make illegal and highly dangerous weapons. A single photo of Thor had surfaced— a selfie of all things, with the man, himself, throwing up a peace sign alongside two young girls.

There was no sign of Banner. He noticed Natasha was no longer wearing her necklace, the one with the small green gemstone that looked far too much like a miniature Hulk fist for him to think it anything else. Instead, her bow and arrow necklace had made a return, catching the light streaming in through the windows. She'd obviously had a hand in ensuring every window had its blackout mode disabled, casting the entire living space in the blue glow of the evening.

Once he'd finished, he pushed his plate away, shooting Natasha a _well?_ sort of look.

Another eye roll. He felt like deserved that one.

“I suppose that shouldn’t expect any more from you,” she murmured, not unkindly, standing long enough to retrieve a couple of manila folders she’d put on the coffee table. “Here—,” they were settled before him unceremoniously. “Most of the bigger players like Pierce went down when Shield did. These are mostly—”

“The roaches that managed to avoid the fallout,” Steve finished, grabbing for the first file and flicking it open. A woman’s face stared up at him, heavily lined, little behind the eyes to suggest she had much of a soul. The photo had probably been pulled from a passport. Next file was a man about the same age, no relation, and equally as empty in the stare. All the targets Nat had acquired were.

Most of them were located in countries with no extradition laws, though some had retreated to their native Russia, some to south of the equator. Only one was in the States.

Before they’d found Bucky, before Steve decided to put the search on hold, hell, even prior to Ultron, he and Sam had upturned half a dozen bases across the endless landscape that is eastern Russia, a handful in Italy and Germany and even three spaced out in the Mediterranean. Those were mostly the major bases and by the time Steve, hauling his anger and his grief along like a weapon all its own, arrived at their front door, the remaining players had scuttled into the hellholes they’d first emerged from. There had been a great deal of information extracted from both physical filing cabinets that had been used until the mid-nineties until the digital age dominated and the rest was extracted from servers. Still—a majority of the targets they’d been after had been bases and bases were easy: they might be rigged to blow, sure, but they couldn’t move. They couldn’t escape.

Natasha hadn’t brought him bases, this time.  

Their occupations among Hydra’s ranks varied. There were a handful of doctors—a neurologist, a technician who specialized in the workings of Bucky’s metal arm—but most were higher ups, former business-people who used their influence and their money to bolster the Winter Soldier project. Steve wasn’t sure which group he loathed more: the ones who pulled the strings or the ones that made Bucky a puppet to begin with.

Zola had died too easily. Too, too easily.

The people in the files would not have the same luxury.

 

* * *

 

(He pretended not to see the furrow between Natasha’s eyebrows deepen as he white-knuckled the files, as his hands began to shake. More than once, Steve thought he spotted her mouth part like she was going to say something, but she would always let her lips press back together, make a small sound in her throat, and remain silent.)

 

* * *

 

On the day before he, Sam, and Nat were meant to hit the road, Steve found T’Challa sitting at his kitchen table, a datapad in his right hand, eyes swiftly moving over the screen. He flicked his eyes up when he spotted how Steve faltered in the doorway, having not expected any sort of company.

“Your Highness,” he greeted, giving a slight nod.

T’Challa gave one of his small, graceful smiles in return. His eyes were bright in a way Steve had never observed in the other man previously. Something like hope rose in him. “Captain,” he murmured. “How did you sleep?”

He hadn’t. “I got a few hours.”

If T’Challa caught his lie, he said nothing. He smoothed a hand down the front of deep purple robe, the fabric whispering against the material of his chair as he stood. “I thought you should know, as of this morning, there has been an significant update on Sergeant Barnes.”

Steve stilled. He planted his feet, for fear if he tried to move any closer, his body would betray him by collapsing.

“As you know, I have the best scientists in Wakanda leading this cause,” T’Challa allowed another smile, dipped his head a few degrees. “My sister, Shuri, believes that she has developed a solution to Barnes’s problem by testing and retesting the hypothesis on a digital construct of Barnes’s brain to ensure a lack of damage to any tissue.

“The programming is largely linked to trigger words, which is far more complex and eliminates the option of, say, just utilizing a mass delete to erase a block of implanted information. Our biggest priority is to keep the things that make James Barnes who he is intact— the things he hates, the things that make him laugh, the things he likes to eat, the things he loves— all the while trying to weed out what Hydra attempted to make him.

“Shuri also says there are a multitude of memories linked to the control of his physical actions, as well as those that have been…,” T’Challa flicked his eyes up to catch at Steve’s. The twinkle had faded, like a star dying in a dark sky. “Those that have been greatly manipulated thanks to emotional trauma.”

He tried not to flinch and was not successful. Images flashed before his mind: a metal fist frozen above his head, stained with Steve’s blood as the helicarrier collapsed around them; watching Bucky’s silhouette grow smaller and smaller as he was enveloped by snow, as the train continued to slice without halting through the Alps; the silent tears tracking down Bucky’s stony face as footage of Howard Stark’s final moments sounded in the otherwise silent Siberian bunker.

T’Challa allowed him a moment to gather himself, of which Steve was thankful.

“She has crafted an algorithm that is capable of flushing out the triggers and their influence on his memories. They retain the core context and content of the original memories— nothing will be erased. She was very adamant you know that. In her words, Shuri should, essentially, be able to reboot him with no damage.

“At long last,” T’Challa said, stepping closer to lay a steadying hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Your friend will be able to come home.”

Those words almost broke him, right then and there.

He had never met the Princess of Wakanda, but he wanted nothing more than to race down to her private lab to embrace her. Steve had seen T’Challa cross his arms over his chest whenever he passed a member of the Dora Miljae, didn’t know if kneeling or bowing was the proper way to greet a member of royalty, but Steve was ready to bend and sink onto a knee until his bones dissolved into grit in gratitude.

_Your friend will be able to come home._

“Thank you,” Steve whispered, blinking hard to stamp down on the tears rising behind his eyes. He looked to T’Challa, eyes probably too big for his face, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care how stunned and open his expression was. “I—I can’t begin to— _Jesus_.”

T’Challa squeezed the meat of Steve’s shoulder. “Take a moment,” he suggested gently and though he withdrew his hand, he did not move away.

Bucky hadn’t been of his own mind since nineteen forty-five. Seventy-one years a few months previous. His memories were jumbled and his sense of self was no better, but now— _now—_ he had a chance to reclaim himself.  He could feel a sob trying to work its way up his throat and the higher it climbed, Steve couldn’t tell whether it was a laugh or a cry of pain. Either way, a bubble was threatening to burst in him and he didn’t need that sort of break in decorum, not with T’Challa watching him so closely.

He didn’t know how much Bucky remembered at the moment, but if Shuri was as thorough as her brother implied she was, he might just recall everything.

 _Everything_.

“Thank you,” he repeated, voice a little stronger this time around. He dipped his head to thumb away at the moisture around his eyes. His Ma would probably pop the back of his head if she saw him being so disrespectful. Through a rapidly closing throat, Steve asked: “Your sister— how old is she?”

“She just turned sixteen a few months ago.”

Steve let out a soft noise of surprise. “You must be very proud.”

There came that twinkle in T’Challa’s gaze, the one that hadn’t been around as often. “I am.” Steve’s face got a hard look over, T’Challa’s expression softening. “I shall leave you process this.”

With a last squeeze of Steve’s shoulder, he left as quietly as he’d entered.

 

* * *

 

He hadn’t been back down to the lab since Bucky first went into the ice. He couldn't do it and loitering in the mouth of the laboratory, left in almost complete darkness except for three long bars in the ceiling, barely glowing at all. The cyro-tube was the brightest thing in the room and Steve's throat tightened.

Someone had tugged a chair and settled it a few feet away from the tube. It looked well-worn, thickly padded on the seat and arms. Steve debated whether or not to sit or stand, as with the latter it would almost feel like he was having a conversation, given he and Bucky were nearly eye to eye. He ended up sitting, though, didn’t want anyone to walk by and see his legs give out.

Another thought, more intrusive: _with his face so still, with no one talking back, this is like staring down a grave._ Steve wanted to seize his hair by the root and just tug in retaliation against his mind for thinking such a thing. No. No it wouldn’t come to that. He would make sure of it.

“Hey,” Steve said softly. “Hey, Buck. I, uh. I’m heading out tomorrow with Sam and Nat. We’re going to find what’s left of Hydra and we’re going to make sure they can’t ever hurt you again. The King has been kind enough to give us the necessary supplies so we’d figure we’d best start as soon as possible. Idle hands and all that.” He flattened his hands on his thighs, ignored the tremors in his fingers before he curled the digits so his nails pressed into the material of his jeans. “I. God, Bucky, I miss you and you’re right here, right in front of me.”

There was a time that he could get through a conversation with Bucky without absolutely tripping over himself. When he could snark and sass and just convey what it was he was trying to say without having to dig too deep. What more could he say that hadn’t been said before? _Do you know that I’d rip it all apart for you? Have you any idea what you do to me? Come back to me. Come back and stay this time, will you? No more running. No more leaving._

A voice that sounded too much like Sam’s for him to be comfortable sounded from the back of his mind, said: You haven’t told him any of this. You’ve got to actually use your words, Rogers. You can’t expect him to just know what you’re thinking.

“You’ve gone some place that I can’t follow,” Steve told him, gesturing at the cyro-tube. “And I think we’ve both made it clear we’d try and follow each other no matter where the road led us. So… so I’m hoping we can meet in the middle. Down the line. Not the end of it. Not the end of the line.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathed hard. “Christ above, Rogers, learn to _speak_.”

He knew this: Steve didn’t think he could stomach going back to the ice, not even if it had been his choice the first time as it would be his choice again.

He knew this, too: if he stuck around in Wakanda, he’d go insane.

Steve had done the waiting game before. He’d stopped actively jetting to the seediest corners of the world trying to find traces of a ghost because Sam had seen the toll it took on him. Because Steve had seen the strain it put on Sam, who was so human and didn’t have the serum like Steve did to just keep going without pause. Sitting around, hoping above all other hopes that Bucky would wonder why he’d stopped looking, that he might sneak through the window in Steve’s apartment in DC and just stay.

He’d probably drive them all crazy if he stuck around for Bucky’s reprogramming. Steve would probably drive himself crazy if he stayed. He’d owe T’Challa for new floors from pacing so many holes in the ones already in place. But if he left and Bucky needed him, Steve knew the distance would make his guilt deepen further, going from his bones to his very cells, a nano-virus with no cure, no way of removal.

As he’d told Sam, only a blurry, half-considered suggestion, Hydra hunting was looking more and more desirable a path to take while playing the waiting game. Steve’s never run from a fight in his life and this was something old, something he knew well. By taking down SHIELD, Steve had already done his part in shaking up the hive—the next step was obvious: stamp out the stray roaches that tried to retreat into the dark.

He owed Bucky that much.

Steve once uttered a promise in a shared tent on the Italian front, swore to Bucky that Hydra would never lay a hand on him so long as Steve could swing his fists. And Bucky had smiled a hollow smile, like he wanted to believe what Steve was selling, but all evidence suggested otherwise. Like their time was bought, like it was inevitable he end up in Hydra’s grasp again. That had left a bruise on Steve’s breastbone, that lack of light in Bucky’s eyes, as though it were a physical wound.

That bruise panged now, demanding attention.

Steve stood, knees wobbling less than he believed they would. He let his hand flatten out on the glass, over the place where Bucky's heart beat quiet and steady. More than often than not during the war, it was that precious sound that kept Steve's head above the water. It was buoying him now.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, Buck. Real soon.”

Steve wouldn’t fail him.

Not again.

 

* * *

 

The morning was bright and the sky was a brilliantly pigmented orange, so saturated with color it nearly burned his eyes to take in. T’Challa could not make it to their send off, given the extent of his duties, but the rest of the Secret Avengers assembled on the runway, forming a sort of semi-circle around the mouth of the quinjet.

“Be careful,” Clint said, arms folded over his chest as his eyes flicked from Sam to Nat to Steve. The three of them were flying to South America, to Argentina. Steve had read, once, that after the war, many Nazis fled there to escape persecution, that there was even a rumor Hitler, himself, had run away to the same location, despite evidence of his death in his Berlin bunker. It wasn’t surprising a handful of Hydra members had run there, too.

Natasha smiled, her mouth quirking up at the right corner. “We will,” she murmured, stepping in to accept Clint’s tight embrace, Clint mouthing something so low that Steve didn’t hear it, but Nat nodded and gripped him back with equal fervor.

Wanda’s eyes settled on Steve, warm and brown and filled with undisguised worry. She hugged him, her hands spread on his shoulder blades before she stepped away and offered a small half-smile. Scott gave him a high-five and a rather sweet salute, Clint falling in to shake his hand with a quiet _good luck_.

“You had best call if you need us,” Wanda said, looking to Steve pointedly then to Sam, to Nat. “T’Challa can get us on a Quinjet in ten minutes or less, no matter where we’ve got to be.”

Steve nodded. “I will.”

Scott pressed in with: “And you had better call anyway so we know you’re all okay. You hear that, too?”

Steve chuffed out a laugh, frail as it was. It made Sam smile, just enough to be noticeable in his otherwise solemn face. “I may be almost one hundred, but my hearing is just fine.”

“Sometimes, I highly doubt that,” Sam sighed, all in good nature.

“We’ll have to stop to pick him up that walker with the tennis balls on the feet we talked about,” Nat said, wry, pressing their arms together, and giving a little flick of her hair. More serious, she added: “We’ll be in touch.”

Within ten minutes, their quinjet was breaking through the wards surrounding Wakanda and shuttling them into the unknown beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> I have about 5.5k written for the next chapter so hopefully I’ll have it done soon! Much love, x.


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